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Deeplinks Blog posts about File Sharing

Fredwrites below that player pianos were the peer-to-peer file-sharing systems of their day; they spurred copyright holders to lobby Congress for what amounts to a monopoly over all machines capable of reproducing sound. Luckily for us, observes Fred, they failed -- and the modern-day recording industry was born.

When considering what to make of the recording industry's current rants against peer-to-peer file sharing software, it may help to remember how the record industry got its start -- by pirating the works of famous American songwriters. Consider this article, written by John Philip Sousa in 1906:

"I foresee a marked deterioration in American music and musical taste, an interruption in the musical development of the country, and a host of other injuries to music in its artistic manifestations, by virtue -- or rather by vice -- of the multiplication of the various music-reproducing machines."

A Canadian court today denied the recording industry's effort to force Canadian ISPs to disclose the names of 29 alleged file sharers. This alone is news enough (and thanks are due to CIPPIC and Electronic Frontier Canada for their efforts in the proceeding).

But the court went on to say quite a bit more about file sharing and copyright law in Canada, including:

Some folks keep asking why more artists aren't breaking into the mainstream through file sharing. This article suggests that they are--but that the record labels are taking all the credit:

"Record-label executives discreetly use Garland's research firm, BigChampagne, and other services to track which songs are traded online and help pick which new singles to release. They increasingly use such file-sharing data to persuade radio stations and MTV to give new songs a spin or boost airplay for those that are popular with downloaders.

Some labels even monitor what people do with their music after they download it to better structure deals with licensed downloading services. The ultimate goal is what it always has been in the record business: Sell more music."

In the wake of a Harvard/UNC study (PDF) asserting that the effect file sharing has on music sales is "statistically indistinguishable" from zero, the recording industry has decided to take its P2P litigation campaignglobal.

SaysIFPI Chairman Jay Berman, "I can't sit here and count all the new opportunities for delivering music to consumers, whether it may be over the Internet or into people's wireless telephones or anything else." Rather, argues Berman, the focus should be on bringing lawsuits against people, without "prescreening" to discriminate among "the old or young."